


how to define a legacy

by laurellance



Series: reflections (a harry potter fanfiction collection) [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, Not Cursed Child Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-09-02 17:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8676970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurellance/pseuds/laurellance
Summary: It's May 2nd, and they're all sitting around a bar, talking about everything but the date staring right into their face. Snape, the Death Eaters, the Battle, the trauma. Pansy's lips are sealed tight as she downs shot after shot, Draco stares into a wall like it has all the answers, and it is the silence that is the most poignant thing in the room.Theo breaks it, like he always does. "Maybe next year will be better." Bullshit. They all know that it's the same routine regardless, but it's a coping mechanism Theo uses to delay the inevitable, and they all know that.Blaise gives a nod of agreement, because he has to go back to teaching Hogwarts tomorrow. He's too tired to say anything meaningful.Tracey and Daphne look at each other with shared weariness, and they pledge to a false promise.(Or: snapshots of the Slytherin class of 1991.)





	

Let's set a scene, one where the world inverses on itself, when the underdog emerges victorious, and the hierarchy collapses. Let's paint it in shades of black and white, right and wrong, good house and bad house. Let's bleed the walls with stories and hurt, and from the ashes pick up a tale where everything goes to shit. 

Let's set the scene, post new world order. Let's declare it with glory, kindness, the promises of greatness and celebration, grief and healing. And let us explore it from the perspective of the hated. 

This isn't a tale of sympathy, as it may appear so. This isn't a tale of empathy, because this is a tale of survival, of people, who survive by bleeding and taking whatever ground they can manage to find to call their own. 

This is a story. This is, put point blank, how people live, how they adjust, how they cope. This is their rise and fall, and their highs and their lows, and this, this is the Slytherins of 1991.

* * *

 

It's May 2nd, and they're all sitting around a bar, talking about everything but the date staring right into their face. Snape, the Death Eaters, the Battle, the trauma. Pansy's lips are sealed tight as she downs shot after shot, Draco stares into a wall like it has all the answers, and it is the silence that is the most poignant thing in the room. 

Theo breaks it, like he always does. "Maybe next year will be better." Bullshit. They all know that it's the same routine regardless, but it's a coping mechanism Theo uses to delay the inevitable, and they all know that. 

Blaise gives a nod of agreement, because he has to go back to teaching Hogwarts tomorrow. He's too tired to say anything meaningful. 

Tracey and Daphne look at each other with shared weariness, and they pledge to a false promise. 

(Or: snapshots of the Slytherin class of 1991.)

* * *

This is a glimpse of what they become. So we back track, to a time of

* * *

 

The Slytherins of 1991, after the war. 

* * *

The war ends. The world celebrates, in tears of joys and symphonies and tears of grieving of bodies without pulses, in the knowledge that they are finally free, and it's momentous, because the world is ending and yet it is just beginning. 

It's a few days later and Pansy and Co are hiding out in one of Blaise’s many houses, inherited from the dead husbands. This one is a quaint one, with delicate furniture and expensive materials, and the first thing they do is drink, the seven of them. There are seven crystalline shot glasses on the table. Blaise leads it, proud and regal, and Theo downs his one sip, perhaps in mourning, or in regret. Goyle blunders, but he is one of them, and he drinks too, because the memory of Vince is thick on his tongue, the brother he no longer has. 

The girls are something else: Pansy, who laughs with wild eyes and drinks with no hesitation, Milly, who stays loyal to them and watches over them, Daphne, small dainty and lightweight, and Tracey, her matted blonde hair tied back in a sloppy bun. 

There's someone missing, and they all feel it- but he's dug his own grave, they all have, and it's their own personal demons, not anyone else's. But the absence is felt, because there is a memory of a nagging eleven year old who cared of only pride to his family, but they all know he's dead now. 

To be fair, they all know the whispers of Crucio in the back of their minds, the first spell that comes to mind when it comes to self defense, and it's a mark of the Carrows, of a year that would define the rest of their lives. 

* * *

The ministry comes looking for them eventually. Letters are sent, with warnings not to use Dark Magic ever again, signed by a Kingsley Shacklebolt. The consequences are listed of course, but no one reads them, and Greg just throws the papers out into the fire, and they watch as the smoke rises. 

They're all sleeping on the other, inter-tangled masses of limbs and hair and drool, and it's comforting, because they're safe. They're safe, with the company of the other, hiding away from the rest of the world in a vain attempt to adjust to a world that will treat them like they are nothing, in a world inverted. 

(Here's a secret, the kind that keeps, that seeps into bones and engraves in blood, the proper kind that people should have died for: 

They're the only people who really understand, because no one else would. They're all but family, tied together by bonds forged by regret and anger, arguments and whining, and terror.)

* * *

Running away only makes reality so much more harder; ask Sirius Black this and perhaps he could have told takes longer than his lifespan, the kind that forces children into adulthood, and this is it. 

They announce the trials for the Death Eaters. Theo withdraws to the library, Pansy snaps at anything that breathes the wrong way, and everyone walks on eggshells and minefields. 

Theo has no one left, he tells Blaise in between tears choked of regret and memory, and that is that. The end. 

* * *

The trials go horrifically. They're a farce, just a mere ploy because the government needs to look Democratic and not a Dictatorship, because everyone knows it's Azkaban. (But Tracey mutters under her breath they had deserved it, and she grabs Theo 

Theo tries to remember his father, an old man with grey everywhere, and Blaise grasps his hand from under the table. Blaise doesn't let go. 

* * *

Draco Malfoy is barely redeemed. In the eyes of the law, and nothing more. 

He scowls at Narcissa and Lucius, disregards them at every turn, and drinks directly from the bottle, not bothering with the shot glass. 

They don't say anything, because there's no point, not really. It's been insomnia and chats at 1 AM in the mornings from nightmares for months, and it's sometimes better to occupy and own the silence, rather than fill it with meaningless apologies, and so that's how it goes. 

The curtains get dirtier, the furniture gets more scuffed and stained, and it looks like a actual home, a messy one, not the doll house they're supposed to have had. 

Draco burns the curtains. That's okay. They were of a Peacock inspired design anyway. 

* * *

They get Hogwarts Letters, signed by Headmaster McGonagall, and lists of supplies, and Blaise tells them he has all of the supplies within the estates his mother owns. 

Which one however, was the better question. 

(They find it eventually, between dusting off Latin Leatherbound books, and the occasional joke. 

It takes fifty houses to find them all. They all had libraries.

Greg fell asleep looking by the third house. Draco found them all. Blaise told him where to look, with a sleeping Theo sprawled over his body.)

* * *

Draco has a home he can return to. He doesn't. 

Tracey finds him zoning out sometimes, and hears dates and names, disjointed, pieces of a puzzle. She stays. 

The first thing he had done to her was sneer at her over her status of being a half-blood. Now, he pretends he doesn't need her at two in the morning, because she is the only reason he ain't totally suffering in his broken and cracked pride in his eyes, and regrets choking him. 

She tells him that he's an idiot. He agrees. 

* * *

This is the thing: life goes on. Summer ends. Their one time of recovery is gone, and they are at King’s Cross once more, and they know the minute they put their Green and Silver ties on, they are walking targets. 

Draco sneaks in, head low, as he heads for the back most compartment. Blaise walks in nonchalant, as if nothing had changed. Theo follows Blaise, and Goyle trails them, dragging Theo’s barely packed trunk with him. 

The girls and Draco are already there when the other three boys arrive, Tracey and Millicent teaching Draco, Daphne and Pansy how to play Muggle card games. 

The blinds are kept shut. The door guarded by Milly and Greg, and Crucio on the tip of their tongue. 

* * *

Silver and Green stands out too distinctly, as they go back to be castle. They're isolated and hexed at, clothes tearing at the oddest places as they bled, and the glares had been expected. Fully expected. 

Blaise wears the injuries proudly, acting as if nothing was wrong. It's an act of quiet defiance,because he would rather die than show weakness to a world that wants to hurt him, and so be it. 

Blaise is the leader of them, noticeable by both his genetics and his personality. He also knows more poisons than any regular person would, suggesting poisons to their delight, and it's them against the world. 

* * *

Their dynamic shifts, and they move with a sense of fluidity. 

Well, they were snakes. 

* * *

There are several things that become very apparent early on. In no particular order:

  * They were expected to attend classes daily. 
  * Whoever had been in charge of restoring the castle had thought it had been fun to destroy the Slytherin Common Room. 
  * Slughorn was an incompetent idiot who could not have been expected to take care of a single student, much less a Hogwarts house. 
  * They become far too adept at healing and fixing charms of all sorts.
  * Resorting to bribing House Elves to bring them good to the Common Room was a dirty but useful trick. 
  * Not a single one of them had been given a position of leadership, even though Blaise had already established himself as the de facto leader of Slytherin 



Blaise taught Potions better than Slughorn, even though he knew less information. 

Really, things were just awful. That was all they needed to know, because in the sense heroes were worshipped, villains were despised. 

The fact that Slytherin had not gained any new students that year was telling. Even Slughorn couldn't fake enthusiasm this time.

* * *

 

They missed Snape. Not the Snape the public knew, the one who had a four decade long obsessive love for Lily Evans Potter, but the one who had told them quite bluntly in their first year everyone hated them, and that they would always be treated without respect. 

The same one that made it clear he would give them better treatment, the one who made it clear his loyalties were to Slytherin. 

Blaise takes over, unofficially. Slughorn was by far an incompetent idiot, and no one else had the desire to take the role, not even Draco Malfoy. 

Blaise ends up teaching himself NEWT Level Potions, for a assortment of reasons. But he does so well that Slughorn is forced to acknowledge his existence, and he smiles in pride. 

(He teaches the younger Slytherins what Slughorn fails to cover.)

* * *

Of course, that's not to say they don't get humiliated or attacked, no, that in itself becomes a given factor to be expected anywhere and everywhere. 

The girls are better at hiding them, Daphne more skilled than the other at healing the said injuries. Tracey would make comments, insult them, and Pansy would give a small smile, a real one, before improving it. Milly often the got the blunt of it, and there was often that. 

The boys had more visible ones, Draco being the ideal target. Theo was often non-descript enough to fade into the background, the Green and Silver blending into the walls of Hogwarts. Blaise, they watched. It was a funny thing, really, because Blaise enjoyed the attention. “They're fun to make squirm,” and there's a sort of power in that, one that he knows better than anyone. 

He figures the others wouldn't have a clue about racism. Theo, Tracey and Daphne had heard of some from him, and Tracey had agreed to his assessment. She had a Muggle father. 

* * *

“What do you mean we have to work with Gryffindors?”

“Is Slughorn serious?”

“I'll get the Firewhiskey ready.”

“Five Galleons says one of us gets the Weasley or Granger.”

“Shut up Pansy.”

“It's probably going to be Malfoy- Draco, you know it's true. Stop glaring.”

"Not even Uncle Horace would be that cruel-"

"Shut up Theo, shut up Draco, shut up Tracey. Hurry up with the firewhiskey Blaise, we don't have all day, just three hours."

"Yes, Pansy."

* * *

The assignment turns out better than expected. Malfoy gets paired up with Weaslette, something that ends in half serious glares and the quiet exchange of Blaise losing a Galleon to Tracey, and Blaise gets paired with a Dean Thomas, who both end up ignoring the existence of the other and the occasional sabotage that ends up Thomas's potion exploding in his face. 

Tracey and Daphne work quietly and efficiently. Milly and Goyle make it, a solid E but not good enough for an O. Pansy and Theo work in silence, and they're an odd pair, because Theo's weapon of choice is silence and Pansy's is filling the silence. 

* * *

Draco has a habit of sneaking out to the astronomy tower to watch the sun rise. Theo and Blaise stay in the dorm, a silent understanding as they talk about whatever comes to mind. Greg sleeps. Pansy tries to rest, eyes closed shut in false slumber as she tries to picture normal again. Daphne gets light slumber, and Milly sleeps, sometimes snoring. 

Tracey takes the cobblestone next to him. She sits down, not touching nor speaking, and not staring at the sky like it held answers. "You're not going to find an answer here." It's a statement.

"I'm not looking for answers, Davis." His eyes are focused on the sunset, and the sun has not risen yet.

"Fair enough." There's the unspoken question of what he was looking for, but Tracey doesn't ask, and instead asks him something else. "You think after all that we've done, we deserve forgiveness?" The ministry papers had been full of it, full of the optimistic message of complete recovery, but it's never extended to Slytherin. They had had fun using the paper for darts. 

Malfoy snorts. "It doesn't make a difference, they'll never give it to use anyway." 

Tracey nods, and tilts her head as to ask a question."Every time I close my eyes, all I see is nothing. A blank room, void of everything. There's nothing there, just this powerful silence that dares me to speak, to fill it with something, even just the blood of my own." 

Tracy finishes, after a moment of thought. "I don't want to feel that powerless ever again." It's a confession, as is their conversation. 

Malfoy closes his eyes for a brief second, and opens them again. They're dancing with memories. "How are going to fight for it?" 

"That's what I'm trying to find out." 

* * *

Pansy sharpens her tongue, and leaves behind all pretence of social courtesy. It's a weapon of its own making, and she wields it, every scathing word true to the core, an analysis of a person and their problems told in the most unsympathetic light. 

She does not care about hurt feelings, it is how she had survived, forged a skin of steel from the ashes of her own making. It is how to erase self pity, by getting over it, accepting it, and she wears her words like a weapon. 

The world calls her a bitch. She embraces it once more as she sits in Slughorn's office, and she does not look sympathetic to their problems. They had never cared about her, why should she care about theirs? If an eye for an eye made the whole world blind, she would forge herself something better. 

It is not personal with her friends, in the same way Blaise takes over Slytherin to keep control for a future that sits on nothing. It is standing her ground, because she knows Blaise will never take outright action to the racial slurs he is faced. So she takes those people, remembers them, and humiliates them to teach them a lesson. If they wish to play with fire, they will get burned. She will make sure of that. 

* * *

When Blaise finds a death threat addressed to himself, he shows it to Tracey and they burn it. It's a small satisfaction, one that he holds dear to himself in smugness. Tracey agrees, and grind at him. 

"Theo thinks his father will die, sometime soon. He expects it." Blaise knows death well, a close friend he remembers well. He doesn't fear death, but for Theo's sake he does. Theo survives only on the small hope of his fate he breathing, and he almost wants to poison the old man just to put him out of his misery. But it will ruin Theo, and Theo needs all the billows of hope he can grasp to live. 

Tracey nods. "Does he have anyone else, besides us?" She knows he does not. All Theo has left is an incarcerated dying old man, and a legacy of land and wealth he will never use. In a Lower tone, she continues. "What do you think will happen, when the old man passes away? We can't pick up the pieces all by ourselves."

"We'll have to, no one else will be willing to." Blaise is the closest friend Theo has, he knows this to be true. Tracey sighs, not in resignation but in weariness. 

"We used to be just kids," and Blaise isn't sure if Tracey Davis is talking about herself or others, but it's nostalgia. The kind only Tracey Davis could invoke, the kind that called for a time of innocence away from Purebloods. 

"We stopped being children the minute we were sorted into Slytherin, Davis." He's not sure if he even had a childhood. Tracey doesn't react, she doesn't need to. 

* * *

The world around them goes on, it always does. Weasley (the female, Malfoy clarifies, with a peculiar interest) looks half about to cry and half ready, eyes haunted and it’s a sort of wanderlust around the castle, memories clouding her way. Lovegood reacts nonchalantly, treating them no different. The rest of the world reacts the way it always does, to hurt or ignore, but mostly hurt. 

Pansy’s tongue is as sharp as a knife. Blaise takes the top of hierarchy, and intimidates them, because he does not show weakness. Theo blends into the shadows as he always had, and Malfoy? Malfoy learns, for once in his life. 

* * *

Picture this scene: it is late at night, and Ginny Weasley is walking. No aim in sight, just a lost look in her eyes, and she stumbles upon the stars. 

Tracey and Draco are eyeing the night sky already. Malfoy with the same intent look, and Tracey slightly more relaxed, as she admires the sky. Ginny is confused to why they are here, and demands they leave. 

What happens next is something none of them are quite able to predict: the arguing yes, but not to the intensity of raising hell, as Tracey would describe years later. Tracey muses as she watches them scream at the other, that their rage is misplaced, because it’s never at the other, and she counts the insults. She laughs at it, and it’s such an odd time, but watching it is akin to the Twilight Zone in a sense. 

They only stop when the sun rises, and classes have just started. Tracey has toast from the Hogwarts Kitchens, and still struggles to hide the laughter on her face. 

* * *

“Davis, why were you laughing?” Draco asks. They’ve elected to skip their first class of the day, seeing it had already started. It was Transfiguration, they weren’t fans of McGonagall to begin with. 

Tracey shrugs. It’s an answer in itself, because she does not feel like explaining to him why watching him and fucking Ginny Weasley scream at each other like estranged exes. It’s a free soap opera, and she’s savouring every minute of it. 

Malfoy stares at her. 

* * *

The news of that spreads like wildfire to the rest of them, and Blaise bets them they’d end up actually getting romantically involved. 

Even Astoria hears it, and Astoria usually stayed far away from them. 

* * *

Daphne has a younger sibling two years her junior. Her name is Astoria, and she is sorted into Slytherin. A sixth year, the memories _that_ had invoked to them, she preferred to ignore the existence of her sister and her friends. 

It doesn’t work out that well, she’s used as a Messenger to get to them, since they were anti social pricks. In Astoria’s words, a summary since she had used far less eloquent language.

Theo whispers to Blaise. “Perhaps Malfoy and the younger Greengrass will..” He doesn’t talk a lot, but Blaise catches on easily. Expectations, to marry. The Greengrass line would still be viable to marry, but not Daphne, since their year was tainted. None of them were too apologetic over that. 

“How would that fit in with Draco and Weasley?” Blaise asks, lips slightly upturned as he watches Malfoy look at Astoria in intrigue. 

“Marriages are as binding as people make them.” 

Blaise bets that Draco and Astoria would not last that long, not permanently. Theo takes the bet.

* * *

Time passes in hazes, and Halloween comes. There's a celebration of James and Lily Potter, a memorial, which doubles down as a celebration of the war. No one drops dead just yet, but Daphne comes out of it cursing the heroes, and tired beyond words. "Milly, do you think anyone would notice if we disappeared?" It's a question directed to all the girls in the room. 

"I wouldn't be too sure, McGonagall gave me and Malfoy detention for skipping her class." Tracey throws out, blonde hair billowing behind her. 

"Why'd you take Transfiguration then? You were the only one of us to continue with it." Pansy replies, nonchalant. 

"It's good betting time with Blaise, Theo and Draco. Besides, it's fun watching Longbottom fail epically. Granger and Bones are intolerable." Milly groans at that part. 

Pansy snickers. "Your fault, Tracey." Tracey throws her pillow at Pansy's head. Daphne laughs, before adding. "Herbology isn't too bad."

"No ones tried to poison you yet?" Tracey asks mischievously, knowing full well Blaise takes it with Pansy. Daphne gives her a half hearted glare. 

(A few hours later, all they manage to accomplish is a conversation that steers to betting, poisoning, and exactly how it was possible to make a government corrupt again. 

Oh. And stories of Astoria as a child.)

* * *

Pansy drops into the seat next to Milly. Daph and Tracey had left the dorm, and neither of them had wanted to alert the boys, who were in their rooms getting drunk by the sounds of it. They hasn't left the room in ages, and that usually implied they were too wasted to try and socialise. 

There were a few sixth, fifth years around them, all loitering around the common room, the younger years being slightly more chatty. Pansy almost looks like she's about to kiss Milly's cheek, as she sits closely. Milly doesn't move, and Milly doesn't like to talk too much. Those are and had always been the two things Pansy had liked about her, because Milly doesn't like to eats time, and in a way, Pansy appreciated the silence. 

"Happy Halloween," she whispers, and it's the most sincere she'll get around them. Daphne had the problems of others to worry about, and Tracey followed the Pureblood boys more for company. And Pansy, Pansy was always left alone. 

* * *

Christmas comes soon, and it's slightly better, since snow means the ties are more easily hidden. Then the question of Christmas break come, and no one wants to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. 

Draco has family engagements. The rest of them don't as much, and are able to get away with staying at the Malfoy Manor for Christmas. 

It's awkward and it's painful, because everywhere seen is the presence of something horrifying, and added was that Draco's mother had invited her sister and grandson along as well. The child was seven months old, and had the ability to change his face at will. 

He was also Professor Lupin's child, something that had become so common to see in the newspaper they'd started a drinking game just based on how many times they'd mention the child. The grandmother hadn't trusted any of them, and there has been the expectation that they did not start any fights. 

It lasts, just barely, only when some of the Weasleys had come over for the child. As a result of that, they'd ended up, all eight of them, hiding in the attic without anything alcoholic to drink. 

Pansy laughs. "Merry Christmas," she says, and they watch as the snow falls through the window. 

It's such a perfect allegory of them, and Theo sneaks back to the kitchen to grab a bottle. "To 1999, may it be better."

No one laughs then, because the statement is grave and it's as much optimism as Theo can manage. Just enough, on a limited time period only. 

(Do you think we're drinking to our funerals, Daphne asks later that evening, after they've retreated to the servants house that reeks of death and the Dark Arts. 

Draco tells her it's not a funeral if they're not celebrating it themselves.)

* * *

They spend New Years at Blaise's house, with his mother. She is kind, and also protective, and they explore the mansion of the month, a crassly decorated one with animal prints all around, but it has strong liquor. 

(And a few packages arrive as well, including one from Astoria, some from family, and one from someone unknown but sent for Malfoy.)

* * *

When Hogwarts comes back, so does Quidditch matches. The position of Captain is given to some sixth year, a nobody that everyone give pitying glances, and for the most part, Slytherin plays okay. They play like before, and it's a stress reliever, only it's harder to find the time so they end up playing it at dawn, on practise days. 

Malfoy continues to play as Seeker, and Milly takes Crabbe's position as the other beater. The rest of the team is assorted other seventh and sixth years, and a few fifth years. It's a motley team, one based more on talent now, since wealth didn't have as much of an influence as it did before. 

They win against Hufflepuff, and draw a tie with Ravenclaw. Lose a match against Gryffindor (not too surprising, they all ended up celebrating the points they did get. Blaise still managed to be a better head of house with how he encouraged people. He didn't, Slughorn just tried to appease the majority.), but it's a decent year for the most part. 

(That is, until Draco decides that playing in the rain at "the asscrack of dawn" was a desired goal, so they end up playing Quidditch, four on four, rain falling and heavens thundering, and the exhilaration of something that's free, and it's something they don't regret, not even when McGonagall personally makes them come down, calling them her Gryffindors. 

Tracey spots Ginny Weasley laughing in the background as they come into focus, and the look of McGonagall's face is priceless when she realises it's not Gryffindors. 

They don't get detention that day, but they do get a wide range of reactions, and it's quite enjoyable for the most part, although the publicity got annoying.)

* * *

Potions is always chaotic. A required course for Auror potentials, a joke Theo had mentioned once, it was filled with the people who wanted to be everywhere but here, and the Slytherins, who stayed in the dungeons. Arguments were caused at every turn, micro-aggressions ignored by Slughorn at every turn, and a general sense of a fight about to happen. 

Its seventh year potions, and the Slytherins take the right corner, leaving everyone else to the left. Slughorn talks, wastes air, and everyone ignores him and tries to follow the procedure. One that turns out to be wrong, so Blaise rewrites it on the board from memory. (It was a simple one, one that his mother had used a lot.) Slughorn doesn't notice. 

(The potion results turn out better than how they usually do. Slughorn gives ten points to Slytherin.)

* * *

May 2nd comes, and everyone is up in arms. Normally stoic people are more emotional, tensions higher, and people more subdued. The numbers of duels, points taken, and things overlooked increased, and there's a damned essay to about a personal reflection of the war. 

They are given two weeks to do it. 

* * *

"What's the point of the damned thing to begin with?"

"No one cares about what we have to do anyway."

(The end result: a blank sheet of parchment with their names attached to it. Tracey, Theo, Blaise and Draco had had fun coming up with the idea behind it, a bit inspiration being Draco's apathy. 

Theo had considered not doing it. Blaise had looked sceptical all throughout. Draco had thrown out cynical and cruel comments, all of which amounted to not doing it. Tracey makes them sign a sheet of paper and turns it in for all of them, since the others hadn't bothered at all.) 

* * *

Later that evening, the rest of the gang joins Draco and Tracey on the roof top. Class ends, and people leave early. It's May 1st, and everyone has their own ghosts to mourn, so it's the one night they're able to talk relative of freely. Everyone has gone back to their dormitory. 

The halls are empty, and it's the kind Tracey wants to fill. The void of space that she can't seem to give colour to however hard she tries, the kind that's melancholy and quiet and personal and she's tired of it. In the end it's Pansy who fills it, asking the question no ones dared to ask. She likes to do that, Pansy. But she doesn't ask it, just comments. 

"I don't think I've ever seen the halls this quiet." It's a honest confession, because it's the one time they're allowed to talk freely, and it's almost normal, almost almost almost. There's never paradise that lasts long, so they take what solace they can get. 

Theo joins in. "They never were." He's following Blaise, and it's become habit by now. 

It's dark out, and the halls are so quiet, the eerily kind that comes before a storm. No one wants to talk about the importance of the date; Draco fidgets, Theo looks at Blaise as if Blaise is the sun and moon and holds all the answers, and Tracey watches. It's a reversal of roles, of what her and Draco would do. 

(Blaise finds some Butterbeer stowed away, and he shares it with them. They toast to a 'better tomorrow", the kind they know they will never have.

None of them want the night to end.)

* * *

May 2nd comes, and they hide away. They know they're not welcome, and even Malfoy makes excuses- he's not "feeling well" (Blaise and Tracey had accidentally spilled some hot tea onto his skin, accidentally of course.). It's a lazy excuse, and the castle is populated and overfilling with grievers and family alike, and they all stay far away.

(If they had personal losses they mourned in their own ways, but never was it as public as it was with the others.)

* * *

It's funny, Greg and Milly. The world ends, and they still live, something an emotionally distraught nobody says, and they've long tuned out what's being said. 

Pansy glares him into silence. Tracey accidentally knocks over his bag and walks away just as haughtily as Pansy and Co used to, acting as if she had done nothing wrong. Blaise sabotages his potion discretely. 

They're freak coincidences, but nothing is a coincidence with Slytherins. They protect their own fiercely, the way lionesses protect their children. There's nothing about this that's half hearted. 

(Astoria glares that them. Draco gives her an apathetic look, the kind he usually gives around Tracey, Blaise and Theo, and Blaise owes Tracey now dammit.)

* * *

Astoria Greengrass is the anti-thesis of the Slytherins, almost one, but her resourcefulness is in how she portrays herself. She's sympathetic to the rest of the world, and isolates herself from her house, which earns her more respect than it does hatred. It's a mix of both. 

It's how she has Ginny Weasley end up discussing Draco Malfoy one day. "Do you know, my sister and her friends have non stop bets?" She asks it conversationally, the way something is poised not quite as a threat but the implication hangs in the air. 

Ginny snorts. "Bloody Slytherins," and Astoria agrees. 

(Later that evening, Ginny admits to finding his presence slightly more tolerable. Astoria resists the urge to laugh. 

He's not. He's not changed at all, not in her books.)

* * *

 

This is the end of Hogwarts. This is an end, one closed chapter that has impacts all through out. 

Blaise doesn't leave Hogwarts. He desires control too much, craves it to prove them wrong. Slughorn retires that year, and he had passed the Potions NEWT with a perfect score, and garners a bit of a reputation as being a decent teacher. 

There isn't anyone left to lead Slytherin. Blaise takes it, just moves his things to where Slughorn had kept his, and gives them the Floo and Password, location, and unofficially takes over the Head of Slytherin. 

McGonagall makes it official, when no one else offers, even at high bribes.

* * *

 

Theo withdraws into himself, into the books in his lineage, carried down for generations, the ones written in French, German, and Latin. He reads them slowly, overwhelms himself in old manuscripts with painted gold, learns the secrets page by page. 

(Tracey lives in with him, and reminds him of the small things. Saturday and Sunday afternoons were spent in the dungeons with Blaise, and Malfoy tags along.

Tracey goes into law. Daphne goes into healing. Milly and Greg settle down by the coast, move away from it all. They find local jobs, and don't come back, only ever to visit. Malfoy is aimless. Pansy gets hired by Rita Skeeter as an apprentice, and she ends up digging up dirty laundry for the world to see far more eloquently than Rita does.)

* * *

 

This is a beginning. This is an end, this is the beginning of their legacy.

* * *

 

Malfoy works the jobs he can get, the first jobs that show up when needed, the kind overlooked. No Ministry career, nothing too official. Just an exchange of money for labour, and it's off to the night job. 

The wizarding world is cold, cruel. He doesn't blame them, as he cleans up their dirty laundry, and he remembers to mention the small details to Pansy later. He finds reminds of old potions, rotting, corroding, sitting in ruin. 

How things changed, he thinks in irony, because there is everything about this that is funny and only Tracey he knows would understand that, because he knows she'd enjoy every gruelling detail. (She had called him a racist twat so long ago, and it's been years since he's even considered using words like that, and it's almost a relief. He knows better now.)

* * *

 

Theo cleans up Blaise's old houses, restores the books. He collects them, reads them, translates them from their language written. He has no reason to stay and find a job, not when he has wealth and land already, enough to sustain him for years. He retreats to the books, the ones everyone had neglected, and he gives them his attention. 

A tribute to the old, a tribute to a memory worth recognising. 

(He is the son of one of the oldest Death Eaters. He creates a legacy for himself as a historian, one with knowledge and resources wide and expansive, and he publishes papers eventually, in scrawling script in a language meant for those who cared. 

He is the son of a Death Eater. He carves his own legacy.)

* * *

You don't tell stories without beginnings, and you don't tell them as if they are fake. 

You tell them as they are, imperfect, flawed, and everything the world wants to rid away with. 

You tell them as if they are about women with spines of steel, as if they are people who have things to do and all the reasons why they shouldn't. 

You tell them, and you don't let them be wiped away by the sands of time. 

* * *

So let's tell a story about the girls: Sharp tongued Pansy Parkinson, who is biting and cruel and cold. Tracey Davis, and the determination in her eyes to fill the empt room, and Daphne Greengrass, who patches everyone up. 

Millicent Bulstrode is tired. She is weary. She does not wish to stay, and so she leaves for peace and quiet. That is also okay. 

* * *

Tracey wants to never feel powerless again. She wants to feel her feet on the ground carrying her to the top, step by step. She wants to scream out and she wants people to listen. She is not Pansy or Daphne, blessed with grace and eloquence, she is a Pureblood mother wed to a Muggle father, she is an outsider. 

She is not Malfoy. She wants her words to have meaning. Her pain is hers, not sprayed out like dirty laundry. She is trying to fight for herself, a fight to give herself something to hold onto. 

(This is her story. This is her fight.)

* * *

Daphne follows what she had done during the war, save people. Save people she cared about. It is a respectable career, only its not a career, not in the sense people think. She saves people, because she doesn't know what else to do. They all can't die, can't stop fighting, and so they hang on with the tightest grip, and follow that through hell. 

She gets accepted into the programme, and once she starts, she doesn't stop. 

* * *

Pansy makes them bleed. She tells truths, from buried gossip and evidence of affairs, of impersonations, and she takes her quill, and she hangs their crimes like they are the most valuable thing to know. 

People read out of hate, she knows. They send death threats. She has seen worse. 

* * *

Let's talk about Millicent Bulstrode. Let's talk about Gregory Goyle. Let's talk about how they find solace in the other, in a bond not verbal, but of understanding. They're shields, the brutes, the big ugly bullies, and it's a bond out of comfort. 

Milly isn't Tracey, witty and searching eyes, and the question why at the tip of her tongue. She's less concerned with that, and she's content to let Tracey ask her questions. She just wants peace. 

(She finds it in Gregory Goyle, and she never lets go.)

* * *

This is the scene: Regrowth. Rebirth. Recovery. Picking up the broken pieces and creating a new and better mosaic where the gold is bright and the blood bleeds red. The walls are covered in POTTER, WEASLEY, and GRANGER. 

(The world lives on.)

* * *

Interludes are boring. So let's list a few statistics:

  * 2- The number of children Greg and Milly have. A boy called Vincent, and a girl named after Milly's own Halfblood mother. This is not a case of honouring the dead, but remembering them and teaching their children they are not expected to be their name sales.
  * 10- The number of times Blaise and Theo almost kiss, there only being a few centimetres of space in between them as they stare at the other, lips almost in contact.
  * 2 (Again.)- The number of people Tracey greatly dislikes (Draco refers to it as her lost of most hated people. Theo and Blaise agree.) within the Magical Law Office. One is Susan Bones, for they never see eye to eye, despite both being just as skilled. The other is Hermione Granger, who Tracey dislikes for petty reasons.
  * 140- The number of times Pansy consciously counts as the number of unique death threats she receives.
  * 1- The number of people Draco Malfoy would die for, in the true and proper sense. His name is (unfortunately) Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy, and he is Draco's most proudest achievement, his most beloved thing he has in the world.
  * 3- The number of time Draco and Ginny (Tracey wins her bet.) get involved. Neither party claims to remember the other, but they're birds of the same feather Tracey calls them. Astoria downs a shot and snorts.
  * 2 (for the third time.)- The number of weddings. One between Draco and Astoria, one of convenience, and the other a short sweet wedding between Milly and Greg.



Blaise loses count of the number of pupils he encounters on a daily basis. (He also makes a bet to Theo about Pansy and Astoria.)

* * *

 

But that's not a defining moment is it? That's blurs, snapshots, pictures of old antiquated Polaroids hung in personal offices as memories. The ones no one really cares about at the end of the day, because they've no interest to most people. 

So let's look at it another way, let's take these moments by person.

* * *

 

Astoria and Draco and Ginny. It's a motley mix, a bet made at eighteen when the world inverts itself. The rules are a bit forgotten now, the exact ones. 

The marriage is one of convenience. It's to keep their families content, and they all know how to play house, so it's not that big a deal. Theo gives Draco a bottle of some strong alcohol from fifty years ago. Blaise's name is signed on it, and Greg and Milly send their condolences. They're happy, the two of them. 

The child, on the other hand, is a different story. 

* * *

 

No one quite knows how the child comes. Most of them aren't as interested in marriage or children, with the exception of Greg and Milly, and the excuse they'd use most often was career. It worked especially well (read: it was spectacularly awful) with Theo, who was self employed, a self read historian. (In reality, he cleaned up the dirty laundry of dead people, wormed truths from letters, and became a walking encyclopaedia of sorts.)

Daphne was wistful about children, but she ended up serving as the main Aunt to Greg and Milly's two, beautiful kind Aunt Daffy with unlimited patience.

* * *

 

From what they can tell, it had been done when neither had been fully conscious of their actions. 

Astoria carries the baby. She delivers. It is Draco's parents that name the babe with pale eyes and hope in eyes.

* * *

 

Tracey is the one Draco calls first. He's watching the child, and Tracey watches from the door. She has never seen Draco this delicate, this happy. He watches the child as if the child is his everything, his one certainty, his one lifeline. 

(If love is to redeem anyone, then it is familial love for Draco Malfoy. Not the stolen glances from Ginny Weasley, nor the teenage romance of Pansy Parkinson, but the love of his son.)

* * *

They all visit the child. Pansy whispers an apology, because the child will have a hard life, and maybe, maybe they could have changed the past. Blaise passes the child the one toy his biological father had given him (given to him from his mother), a rusted silver baby rattle carved with Italian. Theo looks at the child wistfully, with almost sad eyes. He doesn't say who for, but instead watches Draco hold him. 

(Theo hopes the child will always have his father with him. And maybe, just maybe, he can picture this is what his own father had pictured.)

* * *

 

The child is Draco's absolute. The child is the greatest love Draco had ever had, and the child looks back at Draco with adoration, awe. 

(Sometimes Draco tells him he's sorry, when Scorpius sleeps peacefully, and that maybe he will forgive him. 

Years later, Scorpius will answer him with that he has nothing to apologise for.)

* * *

 

The world lives on. People marry, people divorce, people have children. Blaise teaches Hogwarts, firm and fair, but never cruel and petty as Snape. Tracey fights for civil liberties, and Daphne cares for those that need help. 

Children grow up, and they are aunts and uncles. Milly and Greg's children turn out well, if anything, the next generation is a way to rectify the mistakes of the past. Mistakes corrected too long, too little too late, Draco says one day.

* * *

 

You think we could have done better? Theo asks one time. He knows the answer. He's studied the casual and blatant bigotry of the past. He know it well, better than he knows his own name, better than he knows anything recent. 

Blaise tells him not ask questions he already knows the answer to. Draco snorts cynically. Tracey grimaces, and says that May 2nd is not the time for contemplation. It's for drinking themselves drunk in preparation for tomorrow. Daphne and Pansy nod, they can only nod while holding hands under the countertop. 

(The answer is always yes.)

* * *

 

Time passes. They age, and Milly and Greg have grandchildren. Scorpius doesn't officially marry, but he does love Ginny Weasley's daughter, ironically. 

When they die, they die in peace. Tracey dies with a long legacy, a legendary one. Blaise is remembered as the best Potions Professor so far, not that there was much competition. Theo writes over ten books about various time periods, and publishes almost all the resources he uses. Almost, because he has a few letters that are top private to be shared for the world to know. Milly and Greg lead quiet lives, and die in their sleep within one day of the other. 

Pansy eventually retires, with a long history of controversy in her wake. Daphne leads St. Mungo's for nine years. 

(Death is a sweet relief, the soft of kiss of being able to stop fighting, to stop trying to prove themselves to other. 

Death is knowing they can let go, that they can finally let go. 

* * *

 

Let's write a happy ending, one where all is good and the villain always loses. Let's colour it shades of grey, lets paint it in emotion and view points. 

Let's create demons of our own makings, and make a skeleton to be proud of. 

That's not a happy ending, that's life. That's the never ending cycle of life, of new plays filling the spots of the old when the old pass away. 

So let's fill it with memories worth remembering. Let's paint in vivid shades of green and silver, in legacies of their own makings. 

Let's call it a life well lived. 

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago (a very long time ago), I was primarily into Harry Potter. Revisited this old work and made a few corrections.. which turned into a 7.8K oneshot. 
> 
> Inspirations: Secrets of the Class List, and various other fanfics from ff.net. ALSO, is not canon complaint. this was begun long before hp8 was a thing, and I never went back to change the details. So. 
> 
> (I'm on tumblr at chochang)


End file.
